Sioux Falls might be more than 1,000 miles away from the nearest ocean, but in the coming week the city will get a good look at the U.S. Navy.

The community is among 15 cities selected this year to host Navy Week, and it’s the first time Sioux Falls ever has welcomed the event. The Navy uses the week of programs as outreach in an effort to show Americans the return they receive for their investment in that branch of the nation’s armed forces.

The week’s official kickoff is today at Veterans Memorial Park in a program that will include Mayor Mike Huether and Rear Admiral Mark Guadagnini. The event starts at 11:30 a.m. at the park, at 1201 W. Bailey St.

Other Navy Week events include appearances by the service’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team during the Sioux Falls Air Show on Saturday and Sunday, Navy Day at the Great Plains Zoo on Monday and a free Navy Band concert at the Veterans Administration Medical Center on Tuesday. The festivities wrap up July 28.

This marks Guadagnini’s first trip to South Dakota, but the admiral does have a bit of a tie to the state despite that. While attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., more than 30 years ago, he almost daily would walk past a mural of the famed World War II battleship, USS South Dakota.

The mural depicts “Battleship X” as the South Dakota came to be known, in action against the Japanese during the battle of Santa Cruz Islands.

“South Dakota has a very important place in the Navy,” said Guadagnini, deputy commander for fleet management and chief of staff, U.S. Fleet Force Command. “The South Dakota and the crew acquitted themselves very well in that battle. For the Navy, that fighting spirit from South Dakota was very real and important.”

Ted Kistler, 52, served in the Navy for 30 years, retiring as a master chief four years ago. As a member of the Tri-State Chiefs, he will participate in some of the Navy Week activities.

“In the Midwest, we really don’t know much about the Navy,” said Kistler, who was born in Gettysburg and graduated from high school in Michigan, following the transfers of his Air Force father. “Over 30 years, I deployed 11 times. That’s 17 years of sea duty.”

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The effect of a Navy Week in terms of generating interest in the service is seen in the long term, said MC2 Porter Anderson, spokesman for the local Navy recruiting office.

“We might get a few people throughout the duration of Navy Week because of the activity we’re engaging in,” he said. “We’re having a lot of events with children. Statistics have shown if you show options you’re not normally aware of, in their normal channels, you may consider it farther down the road.”

Every state has a naval operations support center; in South Dakota it is in Sioux Falls. Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago is the base closest to Sioux Falls, although it functions mostly as a training center, Anderson said.

Sioux Falls was chosen this year as a location for Navy Week because it “is known as one of the country’s great small cities,” Guadagnini said.

He has served in the Navy for 36 years, and his son also enlisted.

“The allure for folks to join the Navy is the chance to go and see different places,” the rear admiral said. “The Navy also is a very technically oriented service, and all our jobs come with regular training. I’m a pilot by trade, and I fly fighters off aircraft carriers. I did that for 30 years.”

He recalled the time he was told to land near the edge of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck, which can be nerve-wracking for a pilot. But the taxi director safely got him in place, using hand signals.

Guadagnini later went to thank the taxi director.

“It was a 20-year-old young lady who knew her business and had that kind of responsibility,” he said.

This year’s Navy Week activities are playing out at a time when defense spending is facing $1.1 trillion in cuts during the next 10 years. Those who serve in uniform realize that as a democracy, American citizens will choose the right amount to spend on national defense, the admiral said. The Navy will adjust to whatever that amount is, Guadagnini added.

While Guadagnini is in Sioux Falls, he will participate in a veterans memorial service at the Battleship South Dakota Memorial. He also will visit with Huether, educators, the business community, Rotary Club members and administrators and patients at the VA Hospital.

As he puts it, he’ll talk with everyone from “babies to the mayor.”

The air show Saturday and Sunday, Guadagnini said, is a can’t-miss event.

“The Blue Angels are flying F-18s, and we have F-18s fly from the decks of aircraft carriers every day into Afghanistan from the North Arabian Sea, providing support to forces on the ground,” he said. “These are the same airplanes that go in combat, just painted differently.”

Kistler, who was stationed on the East Coast for 23 years, has seen the Blue Angels in action, and he, too, calls it a highlight.

For Kistler, this week will be a chance to remember the life he led for 30 years. He came from an Air Force family but is glad he joined the Navy.